Sebelius: HHS IG to investigate Healthcare.gov development

Dec. 11, 2013 - 06:00AM
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Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius testifies Dec. 11 during a House Health Subcommittee hearing in Washington. Sebelius has called for an investigation into the management and contracting decisions that went in to the botched rollout of the HealthCare.gov website. (Rod Lamkey / Getty Images)

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The Health and Human Services Department inspector general will investigate the development and procurement process behind Healthcare.gov, according to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

“We need a thorough review of the contractor performance and program management structure that resulted in the flawed launch of the website,” Sebelius said in a Dec. 11 blog post.

She said she has asked the inspector general to review the acquisition process, overall program management, and contractor performance and payment issues, and will take action to address any findings.

“The launch of Healthcare.gov was flawed and simply unacceptable,” she said.

She added the agency will also create a new “chief risk officer” within HHS’ Centers for Medicare and Medicaid to help mitigate development risks and develop metrics to measure the effectiveness of content management system programs.

The chief risk officer will have 60 days to develop a series of recommendations to help prevent issues in future large-scale IT projects, Sebelius said.

The agency will also update and expand employee training — including contractor and procurement management — and share best practices across the agency.

“While there is still more work to do, Healthcare.gov is working faster, it’s responding quicker, and we are able to handle larger volumes of concurrent users,” she said.